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Burning Jeep Pin
Location: Paso Robles, California Date: February 2, 1991 Story On the morning on February 2, 1991, on the stretch of road near Paso Robles, California, Gordon and Jane Ortiz and their two children were heading for their weekend place in Heritage Reach. They turned onto a road where they were behind a Jeep Wagoneer, driven by 17-year-old Kim Potts, who was heading home from work. Bonnie Hope, who was driving behind the Ortiz family, knew Kim since she used to babysit her children. The road they were driving on is known to be very winding and narrow and the ground was still damp from the rain the night before. Then a pickup truck driving in the opposite direction slipped on the curve and started to slide around. Kim tried to avoid it, but both vehicles slammed into a head-on collision. Kim's jeep went sideways on the road. The Ortizes and Bonnie stopped their vehicles quickly. Then the former went to help with the truck which had two people (a young man and woman) in it while the latter called for help on her car phone. Suddenly, Kim's jeep caught fire due to a gas leak on the engine. Jane noticed it and Gordon rushed to get Kim out of it, but the doors were jammed. Bonnie made at least three attempts to call 911, but it wouldn't go through since reception in the area is not good and all the homes were back out of the road. So she was forced to reach the actual operator and shouted out to her in order to warn her. Then Kim regained consciousness and found herself trapped in the burning jeep. Her window was down, but the steering wheel had crushed her legs, pinning her inside. Jane was able to get the two people in the truck out, but Gordon was still trying in vain to get Kim out of her jeep as she pleaded with him to help her. "I just wanted to help her so bad. I can remember vividly turning around to my children, and I said, 'Tina, Gordy, start walking away, take off, go.' I didn't want them to see her get burned to death," Gordon stated. A call for help from the operator Bonnie talked to was relied to Heritage Reach Volunteer Fire Department which was dispatched to the scene. The fire trucks went by the home of Kim's parents, Michael and Carolyn Potts, who lived less than two miles down the road from the accident. They were waiting for her to get home and knew how long she took to do so. The passing fire trucks spooked them both, who assumed that something may have happened to her. Then Michael decided to go on foot to find out what was going on, hoping to meet up with her down the road. As Kim screamed out in agony to everyone to save her, Bonnie saw the flames on the jeep going crazy. Gordon told her to get an fire extinguisher to slow them down. By the time she gave it to him, Kim was starting to catch fire. As he was extinguishing the fire away from her, Bonnie and Jane were unable to get anyone else who stopped by the accident to help. Then Gary Fussy, who was heading to a property he owned in the area, came upon the accident. Since he figured that there wasn't much time left before the jeep was totally engulfed in flames, he rushed to try to help Kim, but found that he couldn't get her out through the window. He rushed back to his truck to get a chain to pull the door open. Jack Foster and his wife were stopped down the road by the traffic of the accident. At first reluctant to get involved since the jeep would likely blow, Jane yelled out that a girl was trapped in there and Jack went to get his fire extinguisher to help. When Gary got back with the chain, the flames on the jeep were bigger, and Kim was getting badly burned. As Gary was attaching the chain to the door, Gordon attached it underneath Gary's truck. "The tear and torment must be going in that girl's mind. I had nightmares about that for weeks and weeks after," Gary stated. Then Gary pulled the truck in reserve and the chain pulled the door open. Then Jack fired up his fire extinguisher on Kim to put out the flames. Then Gary and Gordon pulled her out of the burning jeep. Moments afterwards, it was in molten flames and burning entirely down to the tires. As Jane and Bonnie tended to Kim, she was burned badly, hot, and smoldered all over. Then the fire department arrived on the scene, including paramedic John Duncan, who assessed her condition on the scene. As they were taking her to the ambulance, Michael arrived on the scene and saw the smoke and the jeep with the ski racks. He went with her on the ambulance and felt that his world fell apart when he saw her condition. Kim was airlifted to the burn unit in Sherman Oaks Community Hospital 150 miles away with third-degree burns over 35 percent of her body. Michael and Carolyn had been with her for 24 hours. "There were many times that I just...I just held onto her and just try to somehow make the pain come from her and go into me. It's just so hard...to watch her...suffer," Carolyn sadly admitted. Kim's parents were told that she couldn't walk for 12 to 18 months. But she was determined to fight the painful physical therapy and skin grafts to walk for her high school graduation. After two months of skin grafts and physical therapy for her burned limbs and shattered leg, she was able to leave the hospital. On June 13, 1991, just four months after the accident, Kim's class graduated from Paso Robles High School. More than a year later, she had fully recovered from her injuries. She and her family won't forget the people who saved her life. "I just want to thank everybody that helped in my rescue. It's just that I own my life to them, and I'll do anything for them. All they have to do is call me," Kim said. The bystanders who rescued Kim were honored for heroism by the California Highway Patrol. Her family remains close to them. "Good things can definitely come out of tragedies. Many good things," Bonnie stated. Category:1991 Category:California Category:Motor-Vehicle Accidents Category:Fires